Posted on 12/16/2016 12:41:58 PM PST by Borges
Lawrence Manley Colburn, a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War who helped end the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers by U.S. troops at My Lai, has died. He was 67.
Lisa Colburn, speaking with The Associated Press on Thursday evening, said her husband of 31 years was diagnosed with cancer in late September and died Tuesday.
"It was very quick," she said by phone from her Canton, Georgia, home near Atlanta. "He was a very peaceful man who had a great desire for there to be a peaceful world."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Brave man, may he rest in peace.
A horrible incident no doubt.
Just curious, how many communist cadres were
investigated and prosecuted for similar atrocities.
The slaughter of the civilians at Hue just one instance.
I have the greatest admiration for such men. A reverent admiration They show, with the gift of their lives, that a morally upright soldier is truly a servant of God and a hero, not a murderer.
What did he do? I was born in ‘68 and should know this, but I don’t. Thanks.
Those weren’t atrocities
They were glorious people’s victories
Those weren’t atrocities
They were glorious people’s victories
One of the darker incidents involving the US Army in Vietnam.
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre
Only 67 and diagnosed in September. Live every day to a higher calling.
He was part of the crew of a Huey gunship taking part in what they thought was the clearing of a village. When they saw U.S. troops were massacring civilians, the commander of the helicopter landed it between soldiers and a group of women and children. The commander got out to confront the soldiers. He said “Y’all cover me! If these bastards open up on me or these people, you open up on them. Promise me!” Colburn, who was manning an M60, replied, “You got it boss, consider it done.”
Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary.
No mention of the specific type of cancer. Nor whether it was one of the “Agent Orange Presumptives.” Many of these types of cancers are quite virulent and fast growing...
It’s disturbing that Calley had popular support from the American people after the news of Mai Lai was exposed.
Nixon pardoning him after 3+ years under house arrest is an abomination from a culture who just 25 years earlier found the “I was just following orders” defense used by Nazis at Nuremberg to be illegitimate.
Our company of Marines swept by My Lai in early 1969, after the Calley massacre but before it hit the news.
We hit a minefield and had 8 killed and 41 wounded in just a few minutes - never fired a shot. Our company gunny had been killed by a booby trapped 155mm round at the start of that operation. While I was down clearing the tunnels there, we had 6 more killed by a booby-trapped 106mm recoilless rifle round.
What Calley & his troops did was very, very wrong. However, after seeing friends die from booby traps and knowing that the villagers are setting them, an enormous amount of frustration and tension builds up in a unit. It is a tribute to discipline and leadership that more My Lai massacres did not occur.
Lawrence Colburn, rest in peace!
It turns out that one of the mitigating factors in these investigations was the understanding by U.S. military brass that they never should have left these soldiers on such long combat tours in Vietnam, and they undermined the investigations to keep the soldiers from facing legal trouble for things that happened in circumstances that they never should have been involved in.
Any response from Jihad Farooq Qerri?
[spit]
The average Vietnamese peasant was caught in an impossible situation. Ruled by the VC and NVA at night and by the ARVNs and the US during the day many were in a completely untenable situation. If they told the US troops about booby traps the VC would kill their families. If they didn’t they faced growing resentment from us.
Reminds me of Toshiro Mifune’s masterful speech about the fates of Japanese peasants in medieval Japan in Kurosawa’s incomparable Masterpiece, Seven Samurai.
What are they to do? Whichever way they turn they lose.
Not to condone what happened at My Lai, but there were a hell of a lot more “My Lais” perpetrated by the Viet Cong.
Yeah. And the fact that prosecutions would reflect badly on the Brass careers is even more important.
I went to a speech by one of the officers who investigated My Lai several years ago. He said William Calley’s intelligence score was so low would not have been drafted just a few years earlier much less been an officer.
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